Chiune Sugihara rescued Jews at cost of his own career

By Joe Spier 

Joe Spier
Joe Spier
Chiune Sugihara (Photo: Wikipedia)
Chiune Sugihara
(Photo: Wikipedia)

CALGARY, Alberta, Canada — It was early December 1939, just before Chanukah, in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Nazis had yet to occupy the City. Eleven-year old Zalke Genkind wanted to go to the movies, a Laurel and Hardy slapstick comedy, one of his favorites. His parents had refused to give him the money and he was in the shop of his aunt Anushka asking her. Before she could, an Oriental customer went into his pocket, pulled out a few coins and dropped them into the boy’s hands. Zalke, who had never seen a person with slanted eyes before, impulsively in thanks, invited the man to his family’s Chanukah first night celebration. This small act of kindness reciprocated by a child’s gratitude would in the end save the lives of over 6,000 Jews.

Chiune Sugihara was born on January 1, 1900 in rural Japan. Refusing to follow his father’s wish to become a doctor, he studied English literature and Russian in University and then entered Japan’s diplomatic corps. After a stint in Manchuria, he returned to Tokyo where he married his wife, Yukiko. Then following a short posting in Helsinki, he was appointed consul general to Lithuania and moved with his wife and two young children to its temporary capital, Kaunas where he met Zalke on that fateful day in 1939.

The celebration of the Jewish festival of lights at the Genkind home started out as a joyful affair. There were about 30 celebrants, the extended Genkind family, Chiune, Yukiko and their children and a Mr. Rosenblatt and his eldest daughter, Lea.  The candles were lit; the meal was scrumptious with special cakes, cookies and desserts especially appreciated by the children and the family sang Chanukah songs and began to tell stories. As Mr. Rosenblatt spoke, the mood turned. He and Lea were Polish refugees from Warsaw. He began to cry as he spoke of the German aerial bombardment of Warsaw, which destroyed his home and killed his wife and two youngest children. And he chillingly spoke of life under German occupation – how the Nazis were slaughtering the Jews. Chiune and Yukiko listened very carefully. What they heard, deeply affected them.

By 1940, the Nazis had conquered most of Western Europe. The rest of the free world, with few exceptions, barred Jewish refugees. The Germans were rapidly advancing through Poland towards Lithuania, and time was running out. Polish Jews, those who were able, were fleeing east, many arriving in Kaunas then under Soviet control.

In July 1940, the Russian authorities fearing the onset of the Nazis, instructed all foreign diplomats to close their embassies and leave Kaunas. All left, except the Dutch consul and Chiune.

At the same time, the Dutch consul had received permission from his government to issue to Jewish refugees, entry stamps to the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao. Though not really intending to journey there, it was the only means to escape by going farther east. The only obstacle was that the refugees needed to pass through the Soviet Union and the Soviets would only permit them to travel if they had transit visas to a country bordering Russia. The only possibility was Japan whose legation was the only other one left in Kaunas.

On July 27, Chiune and his family awakened to a crowd of about 200 people, men, women, families with children in their arms, elderly people, all surrounding the consulate desperately trying to climb the security fence. Some had their hands together begging. Chiune was puzzled and invited a small delegation inside to explain. “We are Jews who lived in Poland but we will be killed if caught by the Nazis. We need to escape but we do not have any visas. We want you to issue Japanese transit visas.”  Chiune asked for time to obtain authorization from his superiors in Tokyo to grant transit visas to the Jewish refugees. He wired his government for permission but was denied. Twice more he wired and each time he was refused.

What was Chiune to do? He felt bound by the Japanese code of “bushido” (unquestioning loyalty and obedience to one’s superiors) yet the picture of the mass murder of Polish Jewry painted for him at the Chanukah dinner seared his conscience. Chiune was unable to sleep for two nights and then made his decision. He would defy the orders of the Japanese government. As he later explained, “I may have disobeyed my government, but if I hadn’t I would have been disobeying God.”

Chiune and his wife, Yukiko distributed transit visas to the crowd. Each had to be written by hand and stamped with the consular seal. Within days, the hundreds of applicants became thousands. The refugees arrived in droves. Chiune was ordered by the Russians to leave Kaunas but requested and was granted a 20 day extension. Upon learning of his insubordination, the Japanese Foreign Ministry demanded that he cease. Chiune ignored the cables knowing that one day he would be fired for his disobedience.

For 29 days, from July 31 to August 28, an obsessed Chiune wrote by hand in the complex characters of Japanese about 300 visas a day, a month’s work each day. He toiled day after day and stayed up night after night, writing 18 to 20 hours a day, not even pausing for meals. Yukiko would prepare sandwiches and leave them by his side. His hands became so numb that his wife often had to massage his aching fingers. Frequently, he would go outside to calm the fears of waiting, panicky refugees by promising not to abandon them. Most Jews had no passports, no essential documents. Each received a transit visa anyway.

Included in the visas were those issued to all of the teachers and students of the famous eastern Polish, Mir Yeshiva, the only instance where an entire Jewish seminary was saved during the Holocaust.

Finally, at the end of August, ordered to Berlin, Chiune was forced to close the consulate and leave Kaunas. As he and his family were being driven to the train station, he was writing visas. As he sat on the train, waiting for it to depart, he was writing visas. He was still writing visas as the train pulled out, throwing them to the desperate refugees running along side. Lastly, he tossed his consular stamp to the crowd of refugees to use and to save even more Jews.

With Chiune’s visas in hand, over 6,000 Jewish refugees were able to flee, crossing Siberia by rail and making their way to China, Japan and other countries. These escapees became known as the “Suigihara Survivors”. Zalke’s family was not among them as the Japanese visas were only valid for non-Lithuanian nationals.

Afterward when the Nazis occupied Kaunas, they established a Ghetto into which all Jews were herded. At its peak, the Ghetto held 40,000 people. Few survived.

The post-war years were not kind to Chiune. At the end of the war, the Russians confined him and his family in a Romanian internment camp for 18 months. Upon returning to Japan, he was dismissed from the Japanese Foreign Service “because of that incident in Lithuania.” His life became one of poverty. Forced to take menial jobs, he sold light bulbs door to door and then worked as a part-time translator and interpreter. For the last two decades of his life, he held a managerial position at a Japanese trading company with business in Moscow.

Chiune spent the latter half of his life in obscurity. A modest man, he never spoke of his actions in Lithuania and never knew if anyone had actually escaped using his visas. That is until 1968, when Yehoshua Nishri, an economic attaché to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo and a “Sugihara Survivor” sought him out to thank him for saving his life. Soon hundreds of others whom Chiune had saved came forward and gave testimony.

In 1985, Chiune Sugihara was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations,” the highest honour given by Israel to the rescuers of Jewish lives during the Holocaust. The ceremony was held at the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo. Chiune was too ill to attend. His wife, Yukiko accepted the honor on his behalf. Chiune was also granted honourary Israeli citizenship. Today, a little late, Chiune is considered a hero in Japan.

Chiune passed away in 1986 and Yukiko in 2008.

What of Zalke, the 11-year old boy who started it all by inviting Chiune to Chanukah dinner? Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust. Zalke spent two years in the Kaunas Ghetto before being deported to Dachau in late 1944. He was liberated in May 1945, half-dead in the snow, on a death march from the concentration camp. Ironically, his savior was a Japanese-American soldier, Clarence Matsumura who picked him up, wrapped him in a blanket and gave him something to eat. Today, over 80 years old and now going by the name, Solly Ganor, he lives in Israel. He fought in Israel’s War of Independence.

When asked what compelled him to commit the ultimate act of altruism and self-sacrifice, Chiune Sugihara would quote an old Samurai adage: “Even a hunter cannot kill a bird which flies to him for refuge.”

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Spier is a retired lawyer with a keen interest in Jewish history.  You may contact him via joe.spier@sdjewishworld.com.  Comments below MUST be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and his or her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the U.S.)